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Friday, August 15, 2014

A guy once announced to me that he was "an alpha male." Ironically, I had really been attracted to him up to that point because I thought he was funny, honest, clever, kind, and bore more than a passing resemblance to Iggy Pop, and I inwardly cringed to hear this. Not only have I never been attracted to "dominant" men, he had diminished himself in my eyes by revealing his massive insecurity. Men who describe themselves as "alpha" or "dominant" are unfailingly anything but.

If I saw a man with such a claim emblazoned across his chest, I would automatically assume he was not only a moron, but completely deluded. And now I would also wonder if he were capable of beating a woman within an inch of her life.

It would appear that men
aren't entitled to sex; women aren't entitled to safety. One might be
led to believe that fact brought us together.

No one, regardless of gender, is "entitled" to sex however much we may desire it; yet all people have the right to safety. Now go back to nursing your whisky and mourning your childless, uncoupled state, sir...If one positive thing comes of the unfolding tragedy in Santa Barbara, it may be that the manosphere is subjected to more public scrutiny and widespread social condemnation. In the wake of the news that UCSB student Elliot Roger participated in the forum puahate, other New Misogynists have scurried to deflect negative attention onto that site. One blogger has even pondered if puahate and manboobz are somehow in cahoots with one another to bring the manosphere down. Or with the Southern Poverty Law Center. As if.

He talks of keeping the "haters" out, as if their network of angry blogs were some sort of gated community. In fact, while the accessibility and anonymity of the internet has allowed the "manosphere" to blossom, it also works against it, by effectively rendering the "movement" it claims to represent transparent and its "leaders" accountable for the ideas they promulgate. From my point of view, there is little difference between puahate and any number of other misogynistic watering holes. All of these sites are social cesspools that are brewing the same poison, whether it is Roosh ("Women are lubricated holes for my pleasure") and Return of Kings, Paul Elam ("I want to fuck their shit up" or "Bash A Bitch Week"), Bill Price or Vox Day ("Rape is our marital right"), or Matt Forney, who famously wrote that women needed to be beaten because "it's the only way to make them behave better than chimps," and who posted a piece about how men could get away with rape by murdering their victims and dismembering their bodies (oops, that was "satire," wasn't it?).

The manosphere is an aggregator of isolated, angry, socially maladjusted and mentally disturbed men -- and the (handful of) women who love them. It creates an echo chamber that allows these men to delude themselves into blaming women and minorities for their own inability to adapt to a changing world of greater diversity, social inclusion and economic competition. It breeds real, physical violence by promoting violent language and violent fantasies of retribution. Their impotent dreams of achieving dominance will inevitably end in the deaths of others; the blood will be on their hands. And the world will keep turning.

It seems like a parody: A good looking, articulate UCSB student sitting in his glossy black BMW, announcing plans to "slaughter" the popular blondes who have rejected him because they preferred to bestow their favors on the alpha "bad boy" losers instead of "a perfect guy... a supreme gentleman" like himself. Except, unfortunately, it is real. Anyone who follows almost any part of the manosphere (he was allegedly an active participant on sites such as bodybuilding.com and puahate.com) will recognize the cold rage and the overweening sense of entitlement Elliot Rodgers displays as he justifies the murders he is about to commit. Yes, he will be "a god" and they will die "like animals" through this act of "restorative retribution." Too bad he didn't think of starting his own blog instead of buying a gun. It would probably have been a big hit and then he could have had all the groupies he wanted.

Saturday, March 29, 2014

David Futrelle posted today about the attack on a university student in Kingston, Canada, possibly by an MRA, and the hay that AVfM (A Voice for Men) was having with this news. AVfM is vigorously denying any culpability, whilst at the same time attacking the victim as either (1) a liar (who presumably punched herself?), or (2) an instigator who got what was coming to her for protesting the presence of an MRA speaker on her campus. The usual cast of characters weigh in, including some weird over-sharing by Karen Straughan, the manosphere's version of Camille Paglia. Straughan, while conceding the perpetrator might have been influenced by anti-feminist rhetoric, suggests he was in some way justified: if you kick a dog enough he will eventually bite. (Because, you know, men are dogs in danger of being "metaphorically castrated" by feminists. Or something.)As sad and scary as this news is, I am glad the young woman wasn't more seriously injured. And I take some bitter satisfaction in the way this incident will discredit Paul Elam and his gang of thugs even further, which is perhaps in the long run for the good.

Amongst the comments was a link to an article by feminist blogger Sady Doyle that was written three years ago. The title ("A Girl's Guide to Staying Safe Online") is ironic, given that the list of "suggestions" that follow are impossible for anyone who wishes to have an online voice. The bottom line? Being a feminist blogger = abuse. Of course it's one thing to be called "a cunt" "a slut" or a lunatic, it's quite another to have your teeth knocked in.

Of course, the AVfM Grand Pooh Bah had a word or two to say about Sady's article: "But no matter what you do, you are going to see a lot more of the
things you don’t like in the future... courtesy of
the men’s movement. Simply put, we are coming for you. All of you. And by the time we are done you will wax nostalgic over the days when
all you had to deal with was someone expressing a desire to fuck you up
your shopworn ass."So what is the answer? "Ultimately," Sady concludes, "the best way to 'stay safe' online may simply be to stay
online. After all: If there’s no one left willing to complain about the
harassment, what are the odds that it’s going to change?"

Sunday, March 2, 2014

I'll admit that part of the "addictive" quality of following the New Misogynists is that there always seems to be a lot of petty drama going on in their lives. Really, the "manosphere" (and that especially includes the female bloggers), is like a huge soap opera, full of squabbles, weird sexual fantasies, and the occasional twist and turn in the story lines. Although I think we could all see this coming.

UPDATE It was a hoax perpetrated by Il Douche himself. I wonder how his followers will feel about this. It's kind of like Fawney calling his readers "retards", isn't it? Oh these boys, what a merry crew of pranksters they are!

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

I was idly browsing the comments in Roosh V today. It was the familiar topic of how poorlythe charms of American women compare to those of Eastern European women. Ho-hum.Roosh is doing a lot of recycling these days.The fans themselves seemed a bit weary of the subject, like they were just going through the motions.

However, one young man (I assume) did write something that stuck in my head all afternoon, to the effect (and I paraphrase here) that he really wished American women would get with the program, figure out how much they were hated, and start making themselves more pleasing "before civil war breaks out."

Now it's not uncommon for these guys to propose, uhm, forceful means to resolve their frustration, i.e., a Spearhead post not long ago calling for the sexual enslavement of single mothers, or gathering up all the fat girls into forced labor camps to work off those unsightly extra pounds, or that poor Incel guy who wants "the government" to require pay women to go out with him. I suppose forcefully imposing their collective will on more than half the population doesn't seem that far out to them(as long as they don't factor in all those beta and omega men who would surely balk at seeing their female relatives, friends and colleagues carted off).

Roosh himself has hinted rather darkly that "things" were reaching some sort of tipping point; that "things" were going to get "uglier" in the near future.Actually, I've run across a lot of similarly ominous warnings from the online misogynists. The following is plucked from The Spearhead in January 2010: "May your words provoke a reaction.I grow impatient for the coming war."

And then I was introduced by No More Mr. Nice Guy to EivindBerge'sblog,wherein he declares"Feminism versus MRA is an irreconcilable difference that can only be resolved by violence."

Berge was recently charged with inciting violence by Norwegian authorities, but the charges have been dropped. In the process, however, his sanity was brought into question by nearly everyone he knew, anunderstandably harrowing experience that he describes in Kafkaesque detail -- but which leaves this reader pretty much convinced he is indeed one crazy barrel of lutefisk possibly brilliant but definitely disturbed individual.

This ordeal, and the resulting sense of betrayal from Berge's point of view, led him to "repudiate" his own family, a familiar theme with other MRAs. Sooner or later, their misogyny drives everyone away, and destroys all intimacy... they get increasingly isolated... their mental disorders get worse and more entrenched...

I'm not sure whether to laugh, cry, or buy myself a shotgun. Where are these gathering storm clouds but in their own fevered imaginations? And what would this final showdown look like? I mean, where would the battle lines be drawn and what would their tactics be? And what would the final outcome be?It sounds like the premise of a really awful sci-fi movie.Or a video game perhaps?

Although I'd like to dismiss all this as adolescent bluster and blowing off steam,I'll admit this kind of talk makes me uneasy, and Ihope that the SPLC continues to monitor these websites carefully.Update: I read today that radio host Pete Santilli announced on the air, "I want to shoot Hilary Clinton in the vagina."

Friday, February 8, 2013

The prevalence of false rape accusations is one of the central obsessions of the MRM. In response, fervent Roosh fan Matt Forney recently posted "tongue in cheek" advice to would-be rapists. Yeah, it's obviously meant to be read as Swiftian "satire," a la American Psycho (which I didn't think was funny either). He admits he has gotten his ideas from watching movies, and there is nothing very interesting here beyond a rehash of morbid cinematic fantasies.For the record, I don't find jokes or ruminations about humiliating or castrating men amusing either. Neutering my dogs is more traumatic for me than for them! Rape is the ultimate act of domination, whether male over female or male over other male. (I acknowledge women also occasionally rape men, particularly in cases
of statutory rape, and these acts are just as reprehensible.) Nobody is going to argue that rape is worse than murder or mutilation, but it violates an individual's sovereignty in a way that few crimes do. And it strikes me as an act of terrorism, because the fear it engenders affects all women all the time.

Although the legal definition of rape has broadened, the rate of rape appears to have declined in the U.S. This is good news, albeit a trend no one has been able to explain. People do seem to be more sensitive and knowledgeable about what rape is / is not, possibly thanks to the fact that it has been a feminist concern for a generation. We don't know why humans are sexually aroused by the imagery, suggestion or reality of violence. There are almost certainly biochemical mechanisms at work here: somehow, the wires for aggressive and sexual impulses get crossed in the limbic system. Furthermore, we are awash in imagery that promotes violent sexual fantasy and horror. The disappearance, violation and murder of attractive white women is such a pervasive theme in entertainment and popular media that it is hardly shocking anymore.What stuns me is that young men like Matt Forney are putting their fantasies out there on the Internet with their legal names attached. What compels people to burn their social and professionalbridges in this reckless way? I don't buythat it's "ballsy" to commit social suicide. It's tragic.

Perhaps he is so young that he cannot envisage a day when he wishes more than anything that he hadn't done so. Perhaps the ego stroke of Internet "celebrity" is as addictive and self-destructive as crack? Or do these men feel so hopeless and despairing about their futures that they really have nothing to lose?Update: Forney has removed the piece from his blog and (sort of) apologized for it. I've also ascertained Mr. Forney is forty years old, not as young as I had assumed. (In other words, old enough to know better.)